MORGANFISHER: I love the idea of people in the old museum being able to have a preview, so to speak, of the new museum, or at least some aspects of it.

NARRATOR: This work by Morgan Fisher presents three rooms from the Whitney’s new downtown building, which is under construction. The outer form is a quarter-scale replica of a gallery in the lobby that will be open to the public. In the middle there’s a copy room, which Fisher has presented at half scale. The interior room is the curators’ coat closet, presented at full scale.

MORGANFISHER: One of the things we all know about museums, is there’s this world that the viewer in the gallery doesn’t ever see, and yet we all know that it’s there to make things function.

NARRATOR: By offering us an “exclusive” view of a closet, Fisher gives us access to that space, but in an almost comically limited way.

MORGANFISHER: I don’t think it’s too much of a reach to be reminded a little of The Wizard of Oz. When Dorothy and her friends arrive at the seat of power, so to speak, it turns out that that power is exercised by someone who is rather smaller than the image of him that they first see.

And I like the idea that this scene of privilege which is how to characterize the upper floors where the curators are, that this scene of privilege and power, let’s face it, is represented by a closet, which is this humble and entirely marginal space.